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1983 DeLorean DMC-12: Oh, What a Relic

December 11, 2005

Photo by Photo by James Chung

With its sleek, stainless-steel exterior, flashy design, and gullwing doors that whisper about the future as they rise, the DeLorean DMC-12 is etched in our memories more than two decades after production ended.

Featured in the Back to the Future movies, the DMC-12 was a science-fiction vision, but the reality is it went extinct quite quicklyand lives on as a relic of the past.

And yet, You cannot not look cool in this car, says this DMC-12s owner, Mike Sturba of Windsor, Ontario. Apparently, though, enough people felt they didnt need to look quite this cool.

The DeLorean glides along the road and hugs corners tightly, which comes as no surprise considering the automotive legends behind it. Lotus founder Colin Chapman designed the Lotus suspension and chassis for the DMC-12, Lotus Esprit designer Giorgetto Giugiaro created the futuristic style. And the car was the baby of John Z. DeLorean, automotive maverick credited with initiating the muscle car movement as a General Motors engineer and executive in the 1960s.

Without the plutonium-powered flux capacitor required for Hollywood time travel, the 2.8-liter V6 engine needs 8.8 seconds to travel from 0 to 60 mph. Maybe thats not fast enough to bend the fabric of time, but its enough for a trip to the past for both drivers and spectators. DeLorean owners like Sturba are used to camera strobe flashes when driving this prize.

It looks more exotic than it is; no $1,200 oil jobs, Sturba laughs. For a fraction of the cost of other sports cars (a running DMC-12 can be bought for around $15,000), Sturba enjoys the same fame, perhaps more. My uncle has two Vipers, he says, and sometimes people will spit on them. No one has done that to my car.

Much of the passion that fuels DMC owners comes from the pride they get restoring their cars. When Sturba bought his DeLorean in Toronto for $10,500 (Canadian), it wasnt even a driver. It needed work, he says, and I had never worked on a car before. But none of that mattered, as Sturba simply had to own this car.

At one point Sturba traveled to North Carolina to pick up a frame for the DMC. With lots of help from DMC aficionados, who supplied solutions at all hours of the day and night, he was able to put his DeLorean back together.

Few cars match the wow factor a DeLorean inspires. A crowd always forms as soon as the car is parked. Ive met a lot of cool people through the car, Sturba says, from scores of fanatical DeLorean owners to women in grocery store parking lots.

Sturba demonstrates the contortionists way of getting into the car: Dip one leg in, grab a door handle above, hop in and pull the door down behind you. The interior is a snug fit; its leather seats provide a cozy, comfortable grip.

The car virtually hovers, gliding smoothly around a corner. We pull to a parking lot and the inevitable crowd gathers to watch intently as the 100-pound doors rise futuristically.

The company went into receivership within two years of rolling out its first cars, and John DeLorean faced criminal drug trafficking charges in 1982. He was acquitted, but any hope of reviving the company was gone. When DeLorean died in March, word on the street (and perhaps even among his faithful, hopeful followers) was a comeback car was being planned.

Today the DeLorean DMC-12 enjoys a unique status. With an estimated 6000 of the 8583 cars extant, it is both a moderate collectors item and a nostalgic pop-culture icon too.